| From: Don Green | 7/21/2024 5:11:39 PM | | | | | | Obama endorses open nominating processwhile Clintons endorse HarrisThe Clintons want Harris. Obama backs an open process.
MIA MCCARTHY
07/21/2024, 4:16PM ETUPDATED: 07/21/2024,
Former President Barack Obama endorsed an open Democratic primary process at the convention next month — less than an hour after former President Bill Clinton endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” Obama said in a statement, which did not mention Harris. “I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August.”
politico.com |
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| From: Don Green | 7/21/2024 5:11:58 PM | | | | | | Obama endorses open nominating processwhile Clintons endorse HarrisThe Clintons want Harris. Obama backs an open process.
MIA MCCARTHY
07/21/2024, 4:16PM
Former President Barack Obama endorsed an open Democratic primary process at the convention next month — less than an hour after former President Bill Clinton endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” Obama said in a statement, which did not mention Harris. “I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August.”
politico.com |
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| To: Les H who wrote (42970) | 7/21/2024 6:00:19 PM | | From: Les H | | | | Israeli settlers attack foreign pro-Palestinian activists in northern West Bank
In video, group of masked men is seen approaching volunteers planting olive trees, then laying into them with clubs; two American women, Dutch man injured
The IDF soldiers did not arrest the assailants because they fled the scene. The soldiers also did not report the incident to the police.
According to the Ynet report, the IDF was looking into the soldiers’ handling of the incident.
The Tag Meir coexistence group in a statement said that “security forces must stop the hate campaign by the hilltop youth against innocent Palestinians, IDF soldiers, and now also American volunteers,” using a term for extremist settlers, many of whom are younger and support setting up illegal outposts on hills in the West Bank.
Tag Meir called on security forces to deal with “Jewish terror” as necessary.
The incident came after Friday saw a group of masked Israelis — also apparently extremist settlers — filmed beating a Palestinian woman, 58, and her son, 38, in the village of Shaab al-Butum in the south Hebron Hills area.
The attackers were from the Mitzpe Yair outpost and Avigayil settlement, Ynet reported.
In the video, the group of masked men could be seen approaching a Palestinian home and then attacking several people who were outside. As a brawl developed, one of the Palestinians could be heard calling for an IDF soldier, who appeared and separated between the attackers and the Palestinians, firing a shot into the air, but kept his gun trained in the direction of the Palestinians.
timesofisrael.com |
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| To: Les H who wrote (42971) | 7/21/2024 6:42:32 PM | | From: Les H | | | | Israeli Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi met with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. In accordance with the agreements signed with them, he informed them that Israel would attack Lebanon on the evening of Saturday, June 22.
The revelation of this secret meeting quickly spread on the web. Various official sources confirmed it. In passing, we learned that an agreement between Tel Aviv and Riyadh had been concluded. This information helps us understand why Saudi Arabia participated, alongside the Western alliance, in protecting Israel during the Iranian response of April 14.
During the days of Friday 21 and Saturday 22, the chancelleries of the whole world were buzzing with contradictory information and statements. António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, declared that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could in no case be resolved by means of arms. "The people of the region and the world cannot afford for Lebanon to become a new Gaza (...) On both sides of the Blue Line, many lives have already been lost, tens of thousands of people have been displaced, and homes and buildings have been destroyed (...) Unexploded ordnance (...) poses an additional threat to the inhabitants of Israel and Lebanon, as well as to UN personnel and humanitarian workers (...) It is time for the parties to engage practically and pragmatically in the diplomatic and political avenues available to them," he said at a press conference.
But Israel refuses any negotiation and Hezbollah, refusing to abandon the Palestinians, has declared that it will not negotiate the delimitation of the Israeli-Lebanese border as long as the massacre continues in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Guterres: “Israel cannot allow the terrorist organization Hezbollah to continue to attack its territory and its citizens, and we will soon make the necessary decisions. The free world must stand unconditionally with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war, and Nasrallah’s threat against Cyprus is just the beginning.” [ 1 ] He announced that he would “soon make the necessary decisions” on this issue.
Meanwhile, both sides have intensified skirmishes.
Thus, Israel fired shells at Yaroun (Bint Jbeil caza) and Naqoura (Tyre). It also struck an area between the towns of Taybe and Deir Seriane (Marjeyoun) using white phosphorus weapons, starting a fire in the area. In the evening, two consecutive attacks hit the town of Khiam, in the same caza. The Israeli air force also carried out an attack in the Kandouli neighborhood of Meiss el-Jabal.
Hezbollah, for its part, claimed responsibility for at least four attacks during the day. It targeted the Ras Naqoura maritime military site (which corresponds to the Israeli site of Rosh Hanikra, opposite Naqoura) "using several suicide drones, in response to an Israeli strike in Deir Kifa (Tyre district)" on Thursday, which killed a Hezbollah fighter. It claimed "to have destroyed part of the site and injured several people". It also launched another suicide drone attack on "an Israeli artillery base" in Za'oura, in northern Israel, and carried out attacks on the Israeli sites of Ruaissat el-Qarn and Zebdine, located in the disputed Shebaa farms, as well as on Sammaka, in the Kfarchouba hills.
The United States, which has been advising its citizens since January 29 not to travel to Lebanon for fear of kidnappings [ 2 ] , has remained silent, while the Iranian mission to the UN tweeted: "Any reckless decision by the Israeli occupation regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure as well as that of the territories occupied in 1948. There is no doubt that this war will have a big loser, namely the Zionist regime. The Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, has the capacity to defend itself and Lebanon - perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come" [ 3 ] .
Indeed, the balance of military forces has changed considerably since the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war [ 4 ] . At the time, Hezbollah was inexperienced. Today, on the contrary, it has experienced 12 years of war in Syria against jihadists armed by NATO and protected by the Israeli Air Force [ 5 ] . It is said today to have 2,500 Special Forces (Radwan), 20,000 highly trained men, 30,000 reservists and 50,000 inexperienced fighters. It had short-range missiles. Today, it has 120,000 projectiles of all kinds, including 150,000 guided missiles, several thousand Zelzal ("earthquake") missiles, with a range of more than 120 kilometers, and several hundred Fateh-110 ("Liberation-110") guided missiles [ 6 ] , with a range of 300 kilometers and still tens of thousands of short-range missiles such as Fajr-1, made in Iran, and Type-107, made in China. This gigantic arsenal should allow it to saturate the Iron Dome and thus deprive Israel of its anti-aircraft defense [ 7 ] . If it fails to saturate it, Hezbollah has already shown since December 2023 that it could destroy elements of the Iron Dome, thus rendering it inoperable. Above all, it has Sayyad-2 ( Hunter-2 ) surface-to-air missiles and perhaps Russian SA-22 Pantsir batteries [ 8 ] , with the former, it ended, on May 20, 76 years of Israeli air domination. While it is not certain that Hezbollah can shoot down high-altitude planes, it is clear that it can destroy helicopters and planes at low altitude. In addition, Hezbollah has acquired all kinds of drones, including al-Hodhod ("Hoopoe") which infiltrated Haifa where they filmed the naval base and the RAFAEL (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd) arms factory, without being detected by Israeli radars. And that's not all: it now has Russian AT-14 Kornet and Iranian Toophan anti-tank missiles, heavy armored vehicles such as T-72 tanks, made in Russia. It still has surface-to-sea missiles, such as Russian Yakhonts.
There is no doubt that, if it were to confront Israel alone, without US intervention, Hezbollah would destroy the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a matter of days. It is unclear what would happen if the Pentagon were to continue its unwavering support for its creation.
In this perspective, the opposition to the Israeli occupation, which is growing particularly among young American voters, is a challenge. To be re-elected, President Biden must abandon Israel. However, this abandonment means the disappearance of the Hebrew state. On the contrary, the entry into war of the United States armada would also provoke that of Iran. But we know, since April 14, that Tehran has hypersonic missiles, probably of Russian origin, that the West as a whole is incapable of intercepting [ 9 ] .
How did Russia and the Axis of Resistance achieve such progress in terms of weaponry and military science? Already in 2012, Israeli intelligence services claimed that Hezbollah had increased its bombing capacity by 400 (four hundred). They were only talking about quantity. Today, it is also about quality that we must be aware of [ 10 ] . The reversal took place during the war against Syria. We have described it at length, but the Atlanticist press denigrated our remarks. Indeed, it was essential to convince Western public opinion that Syria was a weak state and that barefoot people were going to overthrow the Republic. Today, all of NATO's armies are in a pitiful state, with the exception of France for its atomic capabilities and the United States, not only for its deterrent capabilities, but also for its conventional weaponry from before 1991. For 23 years, NATO has transformed itself into a supposedly "anti-jihadist" coalition, certainly strong, but incapable of waging a "high-intensity war."
Planning to destroy the tarmacs of Israeli air bases, Hezbollah anticipated the movement of IDF aircraft to the British military bases of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus. Hassan Nasrallah therefore warned Nicosia that if it allowed Israeli military aircraft to stop over on its soil, it would be involved in the conflict and would have to bear the consequences.
Since the beginning of Operation Iron Sword (October 8, 2023), the IDF has been massacring, while Hezbollah is careful to cause as few casualties as possible. While 37,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza, only about fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed by the Lebanese Resistance, compared to more than 300 Hezbollah fighters by the IDF. This asymmetrical record gives the impression, at first glance, that Israel is still the strongest, when in reality it shows that Hezbollah is trying to postpone a war that it foresees as terrible.
The change in the balance of power has been achieved. It is no longer reversible, neither in the short nor in the medium term. From this point of view, it is astonishing to see NATO behaving as if it were still the master of the world. This stubbornness will make its fall all the more painful.
The only alternative for the United States and Israel would be to encourage a military coup in Tel Aviv. Already, a thousand senior officers and non-commissioned officers have gathered with this in mind around the slogan: "Whoever thinks there is a maneuver in Rafah is mistaken.
Whoever knows there is not and says there is is lying!" [ 11 ] They are ready.
It is unclear what the White House's decision was, but the State Department's top official on the issue, Andrew P. Miller, deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, resigned on June 22. The State Department insists it was for personal reasons, but everyone knows he opposed President Joe Biden's Bear Hug strategy [ 12 ] . He had implemented sanctions against Jewish supremacists.
voltairenet.org |
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| From: Don Green | 7/21/2024 7:33:57 PM | | | | | | Aaron Sorkin Takes Back Divisive Op-Ed Urging Democratic Party to Select Mitt Romney: Kamala ‘Harris for America!'
Story by Michaela Zee
Aaron Sorkin no longer believes the Democratic Party should select Republican Senator Mitt Romney as its candidate in the 2024 presidential race.
Earlier on Sunday, an op-ed by Sorkin was published by the New York Times, in which the "West Wing" creator suggested that the Democratic Party should select a Republican candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump this November.
"At their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney," Sorkin wrote.
However, after President Joe Biden announced hours later that he was dropping out of the race, Sorkin retracted his sentiment - or his "pitch to the writers' room," as he put it in his op-ed. He also publicly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who launched her campaign for the White House.
"I take it all back. Harris for America!" Sorkin wrote on Sunday, asking "West Wing" star Josh Malina to share the statement on his X/Twitter account. Sorkin's publicist Jodie Oriol confirmed to Variety that the statement is real.
In his NYT op-ed, Sorkin argued that Romney as the Democratic presidential nominee would be "a clear and powerful demonstration" about "stopping a deranged man from taking power."
"The choice is between Donald Trump and not-Trump, and the not-Trump candidate needs only one qualification: to win enough votes from a cross section of Americans to close off the former president's Electoral College path back to power," Sorkin added.
Harris is unchallenged as yet for the Democratic nomination, which will be formally decided at the Aug. 19 convention in Chicago.
"I am honored to have the President's endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination," Harris said in a statement. "I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party-and unite our nation-to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win." |
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| From: tntpal | 7/21/2024 8:05:35 PM | | | | | | Sen. Joe Manchin considering rejoining Democratic Party to challenge Harris
Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.V.) is considering running against Vice President Harris for the Democratic nomination.
A source familiar with Manchin confirmed that the West Virginia senator is considering reregistering as a Democrat to seek the nomination.
thehill.com
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